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Privacy and social networking

We have been investigating how the government seeks information from social networking sites such as Twitter and how the sites respond to these requests in our ongoing social networking Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, filed with the help of UC Berkeley’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic. As part of our request to the Department of Justice and other federal agencies, we asked for copies of the guides the sites themselves send out to law enforcement explaining how agents can obtain information about a site’s users and what kinds of information are available. The information we got back enabled us to make an unprecedented comparison of these critical documents, as most of the information was not available publicly before now.

Dude, seriously, WHAT handkerchief?

snooggums' density principal: "The more dense a population, the more dense a population."

Iliana: "You're a great friend but if we're ever chased by zombies I'm tripping you."

Comment

Facebook was the only company to make clear that its strict policies against fake accounts apply to law enforcement as well. In its 2008 and 2009 guides it notes that it will disable all accounts that provide false or misleading information, including police accounts, and in its 2010 guide it notes that it will “always disable accounts that supply false or misleading profile information or attempt to technically or socially circumvent site privacy measures.”